Binance Announces $1 Billion Blockchain Startup Fund

Announced yesterday, the new "Community Influence Fund" will see Binance invest $1bn in promising blockchain and crypto projects

The new fund will be financed by Binance themselves and paid in Binance's own BNB token

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced that it is launching a $1 billion fund to advance the growth of cryptocurrency and blockchain startups.

Ella Zhang head of the exchange’s blockchain incubator - Binance Labs - announced the launch of the new “Community Influence Fund,” during an online meeting yesterday with 600 institutional investors.

The project will comprise two parts - one will be a direct fund to invest in promising blockchain and cryptocurrency projects. The other - the “Binance Ecosystem Fund”- will be a ‘fund of funds’ which will make investments in 20 other funds - each of which must manage at least $100m to be eligible.

Entirely financed by Binance’s own reserves, the investments will be made in ten $100 million instalments using Binance’s own token - BNB.

The fund has already found its first project in Dache Chain - a new platform for ride sharing touted as the “blockchain Uber.” Founded by CEO of app developer Funcity - Chen Weixing - the project aims to “redesign the relationship between the interests and power of entrepeneurs, laborers, consumers, investors and organizers.”

Zhang believes that the new platform has the potential to be a:

“[A] disruptive social experiment. Binance Labs hopes to work with more aspirational projects to explore blockchain applications and together move forward the growth of the industry.”

Ella Zhang

More broadly, the CEO was keen to point out the care needed in investing in such a young space, remarking that:

“The industry is still at a very early stage, all industry practitioners, should jointly resist the pyramid selling project or ‘scam coin’ and strengthen the industry’s self-regulation.”